Vital Signs
by messyfeathers
Summary: When a trip down Memory Lane goes dreadfully wrong, Cecil is left with questions that can't be answered - not even by Carlos, not even in Night Vale. [spoilers for ep. 33 "Cassette"]


_Author Notes: I don't own Night Vale. If you haven't listened to Episode 33, you have been warned. This is just my post-episode feelings all mushing together._

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The broadcast had not ended at all as it had begun. At the start it had seemed like a harmless foray down memory lane, even if it had been filled with typical Night Vale weirdness. But the way the last cassette had ended - the strangled gargle, the thud of a body making impact with the floor...if the next hour was supposed to be whatever came next in his life, then the next hour for Carlos was a stunned silence as he stared at the radio set on his desk. His phone had yet to ring, which was unusual since Cecil almost always called after his shows to remind Carlos to quit experimenting and go to bed. If the cassette had been some twisted joke, it wasn't funny and he had half a mind to tell his boyfriend just that. If it hadn't been a joke, he had definite questions that required answers. Either way, he needed to see Cecil. Carlos dialed the number from memory and listened to the phone as it rang.

Cecil was still shaking. He hadn't bothered to turn on any lights when he got home. He hadn't bothered to remove his jacket or do much of anything. The first thing he had done was head straight for the kitchen and fill a glass with the pale orange water from the tap and sip it down slowly. Even now, twenty minutes later, his hands still shook, his body still shook, but as he held the phone to his ear, he made sure his voice did not shake.

"Carlos!" Cecil bubbled as always, except he was a ring later than usual in picking up. "How are you today?"

"I'm fine. I caught the show tonight." There was a pause. "Cecil, are you okay?" Carlos asked after a few moments.

"Absolutely. Should I not be?" His voice was too smooth, too even, too false. Carlos removed his glasses and rubbed at his eyes with the sleeve of his lab coat. Something about the unease in the conversation suggested that over the phone was not the place to ask his boyfriend if he was actually human or still even alive, so he tried a different approach.

"Hey listen, I haven't eaten anything yet. I was wondering if you wanted to meet me at the Midnite. Just for pie or something." There was another unusual pause. Cecil never hesitated to join him on impromptu dates.

"Pie sounds nice," he consented finally. "I just have to finish up a few things, so I'll be there in twenty. Save us a table?"

Cecil ended the call and tossed the phone back on the kitchen counter. With an unsteady hand, he turned the knob on the tap and watched the hazy water pool before it spiraled slowly into the drain. He splashed his face with the water and shook it dry again in an attempt to wash away the cold sweat that had broken out across his brow halfway through the broadcast, and with it all the unanswerable questions.

The electric blue vinyl of the booth cracked uncomfortably directly behind the small of Cecil's back, but he didn't notice as he leaned so far forward that his chin rested on his folded hands on the formica. Carlos was taking an exceptionally long time ordering his sandwich since the night shift waitresses required all orders to be spoken backwards. Apparently it was much harder to say '_eyr no hciwdnas mah_' than it was to say '_eip_.' The waitress glowered at the scientist as he finally mumbled the last syllables. She snatched the menu from his hands and huffed away muttering a few syllables of her own under her breath. The vinyl squeaked in protest as Cecil shifted uncomfortably in his seat. It was a rare moment in which he couldn't find the words to say to his scientist, so he said nothing at all - simply stared at the sticky bottle of ketchup that stared back silently.

"Long day?" Carlos ventured. Cecil nodded. Finally he blinked, forfeiting the staring contest to the condiment, and looked up at his boyfriend.

"How is science today?" he asked quietly, still resting his chin on his hands.

"Inconclusive as ever," he shrugged. Cecil looked at him expectantly, so Carlos decided to continue, to ease the silence if nothing else. "That new substance I discovered a while back seems to be an element." Cecil stared blankly at him. "An element is a substance made of entirely one atom," he clarified. "There are currently 118 of them. Well, maybe 119 now."

"137," Cecil corrected simply as he went back to staring at the ketchup. Carlos held back a sigh. "What is your substance like?"

"It's a deep green. Sublimation point of 473 Kelvin. Smells faintly like sulfur, but somehow...sweeter if that makes sense."

"Cerlaredon," Cecil announced almost immediately. "It's number 129 on the table. Science solved." He offered a brief smile.

"Of course," Carlos conceded, returning the expression. He didn't feel like contesting the matter; there were much more pressing questions on his mind. Never one for flowery words or subtle introduction, Carlos decided to come right out and ask the question that was looming between them like an unwanted presence. "So what happened tonight? On the show, what was all that?" Cecil lifted his head from the table and sat up slightly. He was torn between feigning ignorance and emotionally collapsing in the booth of a cheap all-night diner.

"It was my past," he said carefully. "At least, it seemed to be mine, but I don't remember most of it." He paused. "I remember some things from when I was younger. I remember school and I remember the facts and figures and incantations I learned. I remember spending my 5th grade summer waiting by the mailbox every day for a scarlet envelope and I remember crying on my 12th birthday when I hadn't received one. I remember-" the rest of the sentence escaped as a rapid, unformed rush of air as his expression flickered momentarily with horror.

"Do you remember what it was that happened to you?" Carlos pressed gently.

"I don't remember. I don't remember any of it," Cecil whispered. "I don't remember being an intern, I don't remember any prophecy, I don't remember having a brother, I don't remember anything." His chest was rising and falling far too quickly as his carefully folded hands began to tremble. Carlos reached across the table and clasped one of Cecil's hands in his.

"Hey, it's okay," he soothed. "We don't have to talk about this right now. Or ever, or-" he stopped speaking as Cecil's eyes, wide and frightened, locked on his.

"Carlos, am I dead?" The words sounded small and vulnerable. It was a complex question, though by all logic it shouldn't be complicated or even be a question at all. It was the very question Carlos had intended to ask Cecil if he hadn't thought it seemed so terrifying and ungraceful in his mind. From Cecil's lips it seemed slightly more graceful, but just as terrifying, leaving Carlos at a loss for a response. Cecil's wide eyes searched his desperately. Carlos was, after all, the scientist who had saved the city through his best guesses and sheer dumb luck, whose word was absolute truth in Cecil's distorted comprehension of reality. So he did all he knew to do. He leaned across the narrow table and reached his other hand to brush his thumb across Cecil's cheekbone. He stared into his wide silvery eyes, methodically looking from one to the other.

"No dilation," he said quietly. Pressing the back of his hand to Cecil's forehead, he felt the cool radiation he had grown so accustomed to. "Temperature is normal," he murmured as he tipped Cecil's hand that still rested in his on the table upwards, careful not to let go, and pressed the fingers of his left hand to Cecil's wrist. There was a quiet moment as he felt Cecil's racing, but very real pulse. "Your pulse is steady. It's my scientific conclusion that you're very much alive." For a moment Cecil bloomed back into himself, an echo of his usual smile flickering across his lips. If Carlos said it, it must be true. The waitress stamped a heel impatiently, snatching back their attention. Cecil slipped a small handful of onyx stones into her hand as she set down the plates. Appeased, she tossed a slurred _uoy knaht_ over her shoulder as she shuffled away.

Carlos had learned over the past few months that when things upset Cecil, there were two methods of handling the situation depending on the circumstances. In some situations it was mandatory that he be given all the attention it was humanly possible for a person to give to their significant other. In other situations he deeply preferred to be given a maximum of space and time alone. Tonight seemed the strangest mixture of the two as they ate their linguistically-complex diner fare in absolute silence, but Cecil kept a viselike grip on his hand throughout the meal. Carlos attempted to eat left-handed without spilling food on his best lab coat just so he could smooth little circles in the back of Cecil's hand whenever the grip got exceptionally tight as Cecil would pause to blink slowly before shaking his head and continuing to poke at his pie. He didn't let go as they paid the bill, or as they slid out of the booth, or as they exited through the sometimes-revolving glass door to the diner. It wasn't until they stood on the sidewalk beneath the flickering mint green light of the neon sign that Carlos finally broke the silence. "I'll walk you to your car. Where are you parked?" he asked as he craned to scan the small amount of street parking for his boyfriend's lime green little coupe.

"I walked," Cecil replied quietly.

"You walked?" Carlos asked in disbelief. "Cecil, your house is over 20 blocks from here. Let me drive you home." Cecil nodded and climbed into the passenger seat of the old tawny pickup wordlessly. It was seeming more and more likely that it was one of the space and time alone situations, which was why Carlos was surprised as he kissed Cecil goodnight on the sidewalk outside the radio host's odd little townhouse. Cecil mounted the first two steps before turning back with a shiver.

"I don't want to be alone," he said quietly as he hugged his arms to himself. Carlos nodded and followed him inside. It struck him as he stepped through the door into the darkened living room that he knew his way around the little house entirely by memory now. The top drawer of the low dresser in Cecil's bedroom was stocked with a few plaid shirts and a pair of jeans; the closet by the door was home to a spare lab coat. The two of them had even developed a sort of noticeable rhythm around the place since Carlos spent more time there than he did at his own dingy little efficiency these days. But for all the nights he had stayed over at Cecil's, there were still things he had never noticed before tonight - the odd lack of mirrors for one, the strange absence of any personal effects whatsoever for another. No photographs in the frames on the wall, no trinkets on the dresser, no stash of baubles collected over a lifetime of mundane little adventures like most people held onto.

Carlos finished getting ready for bed and wandered across the hall to Cecil's bedroom where he found his boyfriend sitting glumly on the edge of his bed. He was holding a shoebox filled with broken bits of translucent plastic and ribbony coils of unwound brown tape. Carlos sat down gently next to him.

"I heard myself _die_, Carlos," Cecil said with a tremor. "I died and I don't even remember it happening. How am I alive now?" He pressed his fingers against his wrist desperately feeling for the solid proof that Carlos was so sure actually existed. "Why am I still here? You heard it happen too, right? Why can't I remember?" Cecil set the box on the floor and pulled his knees to his chest, burying his face in the orange checkered flannel of his pajama bottoms. Carlos didn't know the answers. But he knew exactly what answer Cecil would have given him in the same situation. It was the same answer to every complex question that only existed in the murky mauve twilight of Night Vale.

"Stop asking questions," he murmured as he scooted a little closer. An indigo eye peeked out at him curiously from the colorful, curled up ball beside him.

"I just wish I understood all this," Cecil muffled.

"You don't have to understand, Cecil. Just a few months ago you told me to stop asking why and how things happen in Night Vale. You told me to accept them as they are." Cecil peeked back out from his cocoon again, this time resting his chin on his knees.

"This is different," he mumbled, eyes finding their way back to the box lying harmlessly a few feet away on the floor.

"Not really. Not at all." Carlos smoothed out the mess of Cecil's blond hair soothingly. "It doesn't matter what happened or who you were. It doesn't even matter why you're still alive. What matters is you _are_ alive. You're breathing, you're existing, you're right here with me." Cecil leaned into Carlos's touch and closed his eyes, letting the words soak in and find meaning. "We made it through another day, and we're alive. Tomorrow is tomorrow. If something terrible happens, we'll manage. We always do it seems."

"Tomorrow doesn't scare me. Nineteen years ago scares me." Cecil's voice was still uncertain, but it had stopped trembling.

"Then we'll deal with that too. But in the morning, alright?" he grazed Cecil's forehead with his lips, lingering an extra moment on the nearly invisible X-shaped scar just below his hairline. "Don't think about it any more tonight. For now you are alive, and that's all you need to understand." Cecil's eyes flickered with doubt.

"You're absolutely certain?"

Carlos reached down and pressed two fingers to Cecil's wrist again, carefully counting out a much steadier pulse this time. Gently, he tilted Cecil's chin up and stared for a long time into the deep violet of his eyes. Finally he pressed the back of his hand once more to Cecil's cheek before allowing his fingertips to trace along the angular frame of his face.

"Absolutely," he whispered.

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_End Notes: __Cassette disturbed me slightly and I coped by writing this drabbly little bit because I still can't figure out what I think actually happened with Cecil. (also because I like writing well-adjusted Carlos as he slowly gives up on ever actually understanding anything in life ever again.)_


End file.
